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The Street Fighter VI Story Thread: Shadaloo Died so Luke Could Live!


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39 minutes ago, misterBee said:

Idk guys...why does being Chinese suddenly mean a character needs to have a first and last name to sound 'right'?

 

We have characters in SF named Ed and Cody.  Names don't really get simpler than that.  It's weird that people are cool with them, but if those characters were Chinese those simple/common names would suddenly be strange?

 

Having a character showing a full name JUST because they're Chinese is kinda odd, especially when every other character in the game only displays their given name.

 

I think some people still have the mindset that Asians are somehow exotic, when of course we're just like everyone else.

 

This was one of the things that annoyed me the most about Spider-man on PS4.

 

The Chinese villain was just a normal dude, but for some reason he has a super weird Yin-Yang safe in his office.  Why?  If he was white or black it would have been a normal safe.  Westerners fetishize and get weird about Asians in a way they don't about other races/people.

For real, dude? It's because this is a thread obsessed with lore and info. Ed is named "Ed" because he's a clone that wouldn't have a surname...though it's been expressed in this very thread (or possibly the previous one) that if he we knew Balrog's surname (which we WANT to) that it would be awesome for Ed to have Balrog's surname since he basically raised him.

 

Also, as Cestus already pointed out, he likes the idea of knowing Jaime's last name as an homage to superstar martial artists like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. It's not "just because they're Chinese", it's because we want to know EVERYONE'S full names. He liked the idea of representing something extremely common in Hong Kong culture. It doesn't need to show on their name entry under their lifebar or on the select screen, it's just something people want to know.

 

Also it's Cody Travers. Y'know like Ken MASTERS and Charlie NASH.

 

This thread always wants to know as much about characters as possible. It's not because of some "Asian exoticism" bullshit. Hell, there were extended arguments about Ryu "Hoshi" and the aforementioned Charlie "Nash" on the old school thread (oh and MASTER Bison vs MIKE Bison and William Guile).

 

Oh also the villain in Spider-Man PS4 has a Yin-Yang safe in his office BECAUSE HE'S MISTER NEGATIVE. He's literally split between a good half and a bad half (which is a photo-negative version of himself that makes him jet black). The yin-yang is a nod to his secret about his identity and nature in the same way Harvey Dent in media often has a reference to (including a bust of) Janus in his office or home. Did you play the game? Since you called him "a normal dude" I'm going to assume not because you seem to have no idea what you're talking about since the split-nature of Mr. Negative/Martin Li is the entire crux of the character. In fact, Two-Face has also had yin-yang symbolism related to him in various points in the comics. Saying "if he was white or black it would have been a normal safe" seems to imply you somehow don't know about the entire concept of Mr. Negative and his balance between his two personalities. If Martin Li was a "white or black" guy...who also had a split personality that literally photo-negative'd him and swapping his black suit to white um...yeah it would make perfect sense for him to still have the yin-yang symbolism...just like Two-Face has also had in the past. Seriously, it feels like you didn't even play the game.  What a windmill to tilt at...

Edited by YagamiFire
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36 minutes ago, Skort said:

They keep reminding us that Shadaloo are gone in these tweets. I wonder if they are pulling a surprise later down the line with these dudes or they are truly gone and Capcom's attempt to fully detach SF from the past threats and move the story into a new age.

I don't necessary believe that this is some sort of a fixed. Throughout the life span of SFV says thing change depending on what the marketing at the impression of the game is.

 

Final Fight Character should not be in SFV in the initial interview because they want it to be focus on Street Fighter. G was supposed to be a boss character then latter on it isn't.

Edited by Shakunetsu
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1 hour ago, misterBee said:

Idk guys...why does being Chinese suddenly mean a character needs to have a first and last name?

 

We have characters in SF named Ed and Cody.  Names don't really get simpler than that.  It's weird that people are cool with them, but if those characters were Chinese those simple/common names would suddenly be strange?

I guess you're thinking i got some special freepass for whiteguy

 

As much i know it may sound made up af, i swear you back then i said Ed was a retarded name for the char (even if tbh had sense) they was trying to build up

Had no drama, no flavour

You got this nazi dressed genetically enginered young man cursed by a borderline demon ghost, that at some point was hinted would have possessed him and make him march over the world as new avatar of Psycho Power evil

Pretty obvious, but Falke was shown in Ed's ending. : r/StreetFighter

 

And he's called Ed 🤣

ED

Eddy for friends

Imagine people say shit like "the age of darkness is coming, we must stop Ed"

 

SNK made Adelheid Bernstein

Capcom made Ed

Let that sink in

 

On other hand i was 100% ok with Cody

Cody back to his Final Fight t-shirt self was as simple design as you can get, name rolled perfectly with him (plus was straight tribute to Tom CODY from Streets on Fire)

Even now that we know he's called Cody Travers, i don't feel the need to add "Travers" not because he's whiteguy but because he does'nt get enriched by it

 

In Jamie case would feel enriched getting that kung fu star sound and some further ethnic background (just like the english first name help link him to HK rather than China), but Cody is just that, name sum him up pretty much if we stick to original super super basic concept he used to be

 

Luke to some extent is similar to Cody to me

 

1 hour ago, misterBee said:

I think some people still have the mindset that Asians are somehow exotic, when of course we're just like everyone else.

 

The Chinese villain was just a normal dude like everyone else, but for some reason he has a super weird Yin-Yang safe in his office.  Why?  If he was white or black it would have been a normal safe.  Westerners fetishize and get weird about Asians in a way they don't about other races/people.

This would be bizzarre/unfair if it was somehow limited to chinese or asian (in an asian game) characters

 

But reality is EVERYBODY or at least people from whatever part of the world are supposed to be exotic in SF

 

Guile is a 80s parody USA soldier with american flags on both shoulders because AMERICA. And his moves are sonic boom based like the Top Gun jet he pilot in the skies of freedom

This other comrade Zangief guy is a siberian wrestler who slam bears and fight in a communist factory, when successfully protect Mother Russia he usually celebrate dancing cossacks style with Gorbachev (typical russian friday thing)

And list guess we both know it could go on forever lol

 

But one can say "but SF2 was 99 years ago"

Ok let's fast forward to SFV, 4 newcomers

Necalli is an ancient aztec cannibal monster

Fang is Fang

Laura, specifically designed to be "sensible/modern design with help of external people" is super stereotype hyper sexualized brazilian asstits girl* who got last minute censored to not have big brazilian thong ass ripping out of gi pants, because she have big brazilian ass

Rashid, specifically designed to be "sensible/modern design with help of external people" is arab prince of mysterious kingdom** with teh power of desert winds and have fucking genie of the lamp Azam as butler

Then in random order we got Menat with ancient egypt themed design, Abraham Lincoln x Uncle Sam fusion, nazi youth Ed and Falke, a vintage eastern euro spy with ushanka hat and Abigail hair got redesigned to have maple leaf shape, because CANADA

 

I'm not saying all this to downplay SF design, i LOVE SF design

 

But if suddently we pretend play any gimmick to further ethnic characterization on a chinese char (a char who's already super stereotype) is being unfair toward chinese/asians wanting to make them extra exotic, feels like ignore what SF is and ever been about, or have personal perspective bias that make you more sensible to stereotype if is applied on chinese char

 

You're right, real life chinese person is normal person

Real life american person is normal person etc etc

SF never been about normal person though

 

SF is about make chinese char super exotic just like try to make super exotic everybody else, whole SF base is simple good hero Ryu travel the world... and it's filled by bizzarre as fuck exotic people.

That's whole charm of SF while at it (imho)

 

*and a brilliant parody/tribute of Kyra Gracie, but this is another story

** now retcon as Saudi Arabia, but was mysterious kingdom back to SFV

 

 

Edited by CESTUS III
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from different thread

 

2 hours ago, CESTUS III said:

@SkortWell it goes back even much before forums...

First time i touched a Street Fighter game was SF2:WW coin-op at bars, i think in 1991 as 8yo kid

Now i'm a 38yo man waiting SF6 lol

  

On 6/7/2022 at 3:34 AM, CESTUS III said:

Eh, i'll be 40 when game release and Capcom is trolling me with that fucking Marisa, don't search empathy in this old cynical man 🤣

 

lol

 

2 days in a row in a week trying to post claim an age all of a sudden, after all this years in a different forum. it's like trying to made an impression and authority to pretend like a veteran all of a sudden haha 

 

Even would resort to made up things that the creative industry and design don't work that way.

 

Cestus is someone with poser and manipulative tendencies to gatekeep other and impose authority lol

 

 

Edited by Shakunetsu
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1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

Oh also the villain in Spider-Man PS4 has a Yin-Yang safe in his office BECAUSE HE'S MISTER NEGATIVE. He's literally split between a good half and a bad half (which is a photo-negative version of himself that makes him jet black). The yin-yang is a nod to his secret about his identity and nature in the same way Harvey Dent in media often has a reference to (including a bust of) Janus in his office or home. Did you play the game? Since you called him "a normal dude" I'm going to assume not because you seem to have no idea what you're talking about since the split-nature of Mr. Negative/Martin Li is the entire crux of the character. In fact, Two-Face has also had yin-yang symbolism related to him in various points in the comics. Saying "if he was white or black it would have been a normal safe" seems to imply you somehow don't know about the entire concept of Mr. Negative and his balance between his two personalities. If Martin Li was a "white or black" guy...who also had a split personality that literally photo-negative'd him and swapping his black suit to white um...yeah it would make perfect sense for him to still have the yin-yang symbolism...just like Two-Face has also had in the past. Seriously, it feels like you didn't even play the game.  What a windmill to tilt at...

I 100% that game.  

 

Let's not forget Norman Osborn, the OG Spider-man jekyll and hyde, didn't have random yin yang shit.  The reason that yin yang safe is in there is because that game is obsessed with telling you how Chinese Martin Li is.  He has a crew that speaks Mandarin!  Check out those Chinese opera masks they all wear (which by the way, look nothing like Chinese opera masks -- why?)!  Peep this 'Chinese' story book from his youth that 1000% reads like a random western story book we sprayed Asian-looking art over!  Yes he's Mr. Negative, but everything about the Asian symbolism there was ham-fisted as hell.

 

It's been a few years, so correct me if I'm wrong but don't you also find a hidden safe/room in Osborn's apt in that game?  Where was the SECRET DUALITY OF MAN symbolism in that safe?  Why was that one just a normal-ass high tech lock like you'd expect?

 

Everything about that arc in Spider-man (a game which I really enjoyed btw) just reeked of a team that REALLY REALLY wanted to use a Chinese char (which is great), but did it in the most ham-fisted western-POV way ever.  It was pretty cringey if you're actually Chinese.

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*38yo man, some of wich passed on SF forums apparently living rent free inside the head of some crazy filipino weirdo with chronical ass burns that believe i'm his nemesis or something lmao 🤣

 

We're not returned at levels of you accusing random people of be my "allies" or "fans" or to organize secret strategies against you (meds must work), but still rent free apparently, without even wanting to live there while at it

 

Read all my Street Fighter posting shit dear shitunetsu, i'm sure one day you will find a weak point and THAT DAY oh boy, CHECKMATE, you will do an hell of a post and your life will have a meaning 👌

 

But till that day please, be nice and don't quote me, i don't need your notifications and you should not either, unless you want to further proof the need of a specialist wich is bit a Pulcinella's secret, gracefully keept by old srk crowd silence lol

 

I said multiple times will ignore your posts (like i do, wich indeed forced you to spam quote button lol) and will not reply to don't bother other people, and honestly also because troll you became boring quickly even back then

You're just some guy with issues on other side of the world, roast you does'nt enrich my day in any way, actually write this post just stole me time and pollute a discussion that's supposed to be about SF with your paranoia shit

 

I will not respond to whatever shit you're going to reply, i'm not interested and nobody else is

If possible just do it without quote button lol

 

 

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12 minutes ago, misterBee said:

I 100% that game.  

 

Let's not forget Norman Osborn, the OG Spider-man jekyll and hyde, didn't have random yin yang shit.  The reason that yin yang safe is in there is because that game is obsessed with telling you how Chinese Martin Li is.  He has a crew that speaks Mandarin!  Check out those Chinese opera masks they all wear (which by the way, look nothing like Chinese opera masks -- why?)!  Peep this 'Chinese' story book from his youth that 1000% reads like a random western story book we sprayed Asian-looking art over!  Yes he's Mr. Negative, but everything about the Asian symbolism there was ham-fisted as hell.

 

It's been a few years, so correct me if I'm wrong but don't you also find a hidden safe/room in Osborn's apt in that game?  Where was the SECRET DUALITY OF MAN symbolism in that safe?  Why was that one just a normal-ass high tech lock like you'd expect?

 

Everything about that arc in Spider-man (a game which I really enjoyed btw) just reeked of a team that REALLY REALLY wanted to use a Chinese char (which is great), but did it in the most ham-fisted western-POV way ever.  It was pretty cringey if you're actually Chinese.

Dude, I'm gonna be 100% honest and say you sound like you have some serious hang-ups outside of fictional stories about men dressed as American flags, dude with spider-powers and a guy based on some yin-yang symbolism.

 

Make a character and attempt to represent some elements in their culture = "You're being cringe by doing that! Don't do that!"

Make a character and give them no connections to elements from their culture = "You're ignoring their heritage!"

Make a character and give them connections to elements from a culture different from what would typically be theirs = "You're culturally appropriating!"

 

This stuff is why people just throw up their hands and don't listen to these histrionics...because, as Goldmember said, "Then there is no pleasing you!"

 

You know what? Mr. Negative should just not have been made and they should have just used a random white-guy villain. He could be a cowboy. Fucking no one would complain and freak out. And we'd be down one cool Chinese villain. Let's go with that option. Sounds great. /s

 

Oh btw, you 100%'d Spider-Man for PS4?

 

Osborn's penthouse LITERALLY has the same kind of hints at his character in it

 

spacer.png

 

In his case its masks of oni/goblins

 

Li has a yin/yang because it's a classical symbol of duality in stark black & white...and Mr. Negative quite literally goes from black to white as part of his transformation. Just like in the comics with his references to Go/Chess with his board of black and white pieces. On top of that, Mr. Negative and his Inner Demons all have 'stylized opera masks' and the stronger connection to Chinese culture because Mr. Negative is obsessed with Li's past and his parents and their deaths so he is wrapped up entirely in elements of his past and his connection to his family (which includes his culture). Martin Li is a totally 'regular' (which I guess is you using the term 'regular dude' to refer to someone that is Americanized or more western in attitude...which is...weird but whatever) guy that DOESN'T dwell on the past because he's forward thinking and about other people instead of being obsessed with himself and power.

 

This is all explicit in the narrative. This is the equivalent of asking why Steve Rogers is tied up in Americana symbolism

Edited by YagamiFire
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51 minutes ago, CESTUS III said:

On other hand i was 100% ok with Cody

Cody back to his Final Fight t-shirt self was as simple design as you can get, name rolled perfectly with him (plus was straight tribute to Tom CODY from Streets on Fire)

Even now that we know he's called Cody Travers, i don't feel the need to add "Travers" not because he's whiteguy but because he does'nt get enriched by it

 

In Jamie case would feel enriched getting that kung fu star sound and some further ethnic background (just like the english first name help link him to HK rather than China), but Cody is just that, name sum him up pretty much if we stick to original super super basic concept he used to be

 

I guess what I'm asking is why having a 'kung fu star name' enriches the character. Jamie is wearing the stereotypical shit, he's got the gourd, he's got the drunken style, he has the braid -- I mean at that point what does adding a Chinese-sounding name add to it?  If anything the fact that his name is the one thing that ISN'T super Chinese is more interesting, especially when compared to everything else about him.

 

I agree with all your points about SF char design -- it has always been stereotypes and it's one of the things I've always thought was the lamest about it.  I really like how (most of) the newer characters are starting to move away from the 1980s basic-ass ethnic stereotypes.

 

Yes, SF is definitely about making 'exotic' chars, and when it comes to legacy chars (Gief, etc.) it's obvious why you can't change who they are anymore. I 100% agree with your analysis of them. 

 

My main point is that in 2022, different nationalities aren't 'exotic'.  It's not the 80s/90s anymore.  Someone being from Asia or Africa or Europe isn't 'wild'.  Being from another country or race isn't 'weird' or 'exciting'.  It's just life.  The quicker we stop treating different races/skin colors/countries as exciting or wild the better.

 

If SF chars want to get weird that's great, and I hope they keep pushing things.  I'm just tired of nationality being used as a crutch for char design.

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On 6/9/2022 at 11:01 AM, CESTUS III said:

We're not returned at levels of you accusing random people of be my "allies" or "fans" or to organize secret strategies against you (meds must work), but still rent free apparently, without even wanting to live there while at it

 

Read all my Street Fighter posting shit dear shitunetsu, i'm sure one day you will find a weak point and THAT DAY oh boy, CHECKMATE, you will do an hell of a post and your life will have a meaning 👌

 

But till that day please, be nice and don't quote me, i don't need your notifications and you should not either, unless you want to further proof the need of a specialist wich is bit a Pulcinella's secret, gracefully keept by old srk crowd silence lol

 

I said multiple times will ignore your posts (like i do, wich indeed forced you to spam quote button lol) and will not reply to don't bother other people, and honestly also because troll you became boring quickly even back then

You're just some guy with issues on other side of the world, roast you does'nt enrich my day in any way, actually write this post just stole me time and pollute a discussion that's supposed to be about SF with your paranoia shit

 

I will not respond to whatever shit you're going to reply, i'm not interested and nobody else is

If possible just do it without quote button lol

 

 

 

cestus fu!k you

 

YOUR an asshole jerk you lose an argument on Sagat in character anticipation thread then tries to made up stories about me even I don't know him personally in real life. 

 

Like pretending to be an authority in character design. His trying to sound like one don't know what his talking about other than reference

 

Absolute trash.

 

Your always been in the CHECK MATE STATUS and owned by me in SRK threads. lol

 

Bulsh!t claims

-like Jin Saotome being debut in MVC2. LOL

-claiming to hate playing SFXT because Ryu doesn't have a donkey kick. LOL

-Copy Paste Animation of SF4 Dan animation to Kage and using a mod to justify a claims that how animation works. LOL

-and alot more.

 

-Pretending as a character designer but all he does is referencing to justify his personal preference and biases. That's not how character design works lol. 

 

Atleast I could disect and been informative how things work in srk thread and why you are wrong but now I not going to be informative to keep dumb and echoing the same stuff that is wrong all over. because your LEARNING FROM ME. LOL

 

On 6/9/2022 at 11:01 AM, CESTUS III said:

38yo man, some of wich passed on SF forums apparently living rent free inside the head of some crazy filipino weirdo with chronical ass burns that believe i'm his nemesis or something lmao 🤣

 

  Fucking loser and racist lol. I'm sure that's you in REAL LIFE.

 

Typical PROJECTION haha

 

That's how you handle the argument in character anticipation thread when I lose from someone LEGIT. So I will expose you every now and then HAHA

 

What the hell being a filipino even relate to this non sense. You just hate criticism

 

I don't consider you as a rival because your the one that tries to bait me most of the time in the thread like acting opposite then later on changing claims.

Edited by Shakunetsu
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The fact that you can't see the joy in celebrating other cultures by bringing them to the forefront really just...saddens me.

 

Growing up Street Fighter helped expose me to outside cultural ideas and learn to really love and embrace them and enjoy finding out about them. It wasn't 'exoticism', it was a celebration of differences.

 

Cultures ARE different. People ARE different. Seeing those elements IS exciting. It's not "just life" because that reduces the entirety of human experience to some gray morass of identical, uninteresting mush.

 

I think it's awesome that people from the west love samurai. I think it's awesome that people in Japan love cowboys. I think it's awesome that people from the Middle East got hype when Rashid (who I guess you would call 'a lame stereotype) premiered and cheered for a rep in the game.

 

I think Street Fighter character design is awesome because it tends to say all these things about different cultures are cool and deserve to be shown. In fact, WE were the people that were complaining when Hakan turned Turkish Oil Wrestling into a gag because that WAS a bad thing to do...not because he was a Turkish oil wrestler but because they made the wrestling into a joke. That is NOT how SF does things typically.

 

You think Street Fighter character designs are 'lame' (despite being loved the world over) because you seem to want everyone to be some bland, homogenized 'western' goulash.

 

Yeah hard pass on that. Miss me with that shit.

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1 minute ago, YagamiFire said:

Dude, I'm gonna be 100% honest and say you sound like you have some serious hang-ups outside of fictional stories about men dressed as American flags, dude with spider-powers and a guy based on some yin-yang symbolism.

 

Make a character and attempt to represent some elements in their culture = "You're being cringe by doing that! Don't do that!"

Make a character and give them no connections to elements from their culture = "You're ignoring their heritage!"

Make a character and give them connections to elements from a culture different from what would typically be theres = "You're culturally appropriating!"

 

This stuff is why people just throw up their hands and don't listen to these histrionics.

 

You know what? Mr. Negative should just not have been made and they should have just used a random white-guy villain. He could be a cowboy. Fucking no one would complain and freak out. And we'd be down one cool Chinese villain. Let's go with that option. Sounds great. /s

 

Oh btw, you 100%'d Spider-Man for PS4?

 

Osborn's penthouse LITERALLY has the same kind of hints at his character in it

 

spacer.png

 

In his case its masks of oni/goblins

 

Li has a yin/yang because it's a classical symbol of duality in stark black & white...and Mr. Negative quite literally goes from black to white as part of his transformation. Just like in the comics with his references to Go/Chess with his board of black and white pieces. On top of that, Mr. Negative and his Inner Demons all have 'stylized opera masks' and the stronger connection to Chinese culture because Mr. Negative is obsessed with Li's past and his parents and their deaths so he is wrapped up entirely in elements of his past and his connection to his family (which includes his culture). Martin Li is a totally 'regular' (which I guess is you using the term 'regular dude' to refer to someone that is Americanized or more western in attitude...which is...weird but whatever) guy that DOESN'T dwell on the past because he's forward thinking and about other people instead of being obsessed with himself and power.

 

This is all explicit in the narrative. This is the equivalent of asking why Steve Rogers is tied up in Americana symbolism

I take no offense at what you posted about me, but I think you are largely confusing me with random people who freak out on Twitter.  If anything it seems like YOU have a chip on your shoulder from arguing with other people online about these things or something.

 

1) I personally don't care if my culture or heritage are represented in media.  If all the Marvel heroes are white that's irrelevant to me.  I don't freak out about that like some people do.

2) I personally don't care about cultural appropriation.  MJ's dress in the movies didn't mean anything to me.

 

So right off the bat idk why you even brought those two things up.

 

What I DO care about is if you're going to represent my culture, you might as well do it properly.  There's a big difference between portraying a Chinese character and portraying a caricature that appeals to what non-Chinese people think a Chinese person is.  It's the difference between Martin Li (whose portrayal I thought was overall very good) vs Fu Manchu.

 

I call Martin Li 'a regular dude' because when he's not being a super villain that's exactly how he comes across.  He doesn't speak with a lame accent, he doesn't waltz around wearing traditional Chinese clothing, he is literally just a normal dude.  You don't look at him on your screen and think "WOW HE'S SO CHINESE!!!!", which in the not-so-distant past is how Asian chars have been portrayed.  In that way he's an example of a lot of progress in terms of portrayals in media.  When he's Mr. Negative it's much the same.  0 issues.

 

But why is all the other stuff around him so corny and silly?  The safe, the story book, the way the masks are hilariously incorrect -- it's pretty embarrassing.  I'm sure the developers meant well but it comes across as super ham-fisted.  Whereas their portrayal of the character is great, all the 'set dressing' around him in their attempts to show you how Asian he is fall really flat.  And why do they need all that anyway?  You can tell he's Asian just by looking at him.  Do you really need all these set pieces in case someone missed the memo?

 

Why not make sure every Irish character has bottles of Guiness all over their apartment or ensure every French guy has baguettes everywhere?  

 

I thought Mr. Negative was great. I just didn't care for all the dumb stuff around him that is placed there just to show how exotic and Asian he is.

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22 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

You think Street Fighter character designs are 'lame' (despite being loved the world over) because you seem to want everyone to be some bland, homogenized 'western' goulash.

 

Yeah hard pass on that. Miss me with that shit.

I agreed with your post until this.

 

Why do you think that?  

 

I'm not saying you should never introduce cultural elements.  That's not what I'm saying at all.  I'm just saying you should do it in a way that isn't lazy, and I think new SF char designs do that well.

 

If you want to have a cowboy, sure.  If you want to have a samurai, great!  Just don't make them caricatures.  And I'd like to think in 2022 the only thought process shouldn't be 'hur hur they're from another country'.  Surely there's more to it than that?

 

Hakan is an excellent point to bring up.  They made Oil Wrestling a joke 'HAHA HE'S FROM TURKEY AND THEY'RE SO WILD OVER THERE'.  All I'm saying is I don't need more of that -- but when nationality is the only thing you lean on that's exactly what happens.

 

You seem to act like I'm attacking the things you like, but that' s not it at all.  I like SF just as much as you and want it to evolve and stay relevant.  USA Soldier-man Guile and JP Karate-man Ryu were fine in the 90s and will always have a soft-spot in my heart but if they were released in 2022 I'd call them lazy and lame.

 

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6 hours ago, Chun-Li_Forever said:

Never thought I'd see the day that Street Fighter gets hype from Rolling Stone. It's awesome to see SF getting such a love-fest this past week. Crap, man, this is exciting. SF with a huge budget, the devs listening to fan concerns and acting on them, bold new stuff? I'm grinning ear to ear.

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1 hour ago, misterBee said:

What I DO care about is if you're going to represent my culture, you might as well do it properly.  There's a big difference between portraying a Chinese character and portraying a caricature that appeals to what non-Chinese people think a Chinese person is.  It's the difference between Martin Li (whose portrayal I thought was overall very good) vs Fu Manchu.

This is what you seem to not understand. It is not YOUR culture. It is millions or billions of peoples "culture". There is no iron-clad version of the "culture" and perfect representation of it. There is no "X culture" as some discrete perfect thing that can be represented. You say not to "lean" on it but you just said Mr. Negative doesn't lean on it...and he doesn't. Does he use elements? Sure. But they absolutely make sense for his backstory and how Mr. Negative (specifically Mr. Negative and not Martin Li) is characterized. He is shown to be obsessed with his past and the concept of duality in general so the overlap of those two things makes something like a yin-yang or the Inner Demons (especially) totally make sense for his character. It's his villainous thematics. Constantly drawing these narrow lines over "Oh but he had a yin-yang and these masks" is just silly because there is very many reasonable people that will totally see that as "Oh a cool nod to Chinese stuff that makes sense for Mr. Negative" and not "cringe".

 

Like you assume the masks are just "hilariously wrong"...when they could simply be inspired by something and not meant to be literally Chinese opera masks. Is Nightmare in Soul Calibur a "hilariously wrong" rendition of European full plate armor? It's not meant to be correct. It's meant to have inspiration cues from something that is then warped to fit the motif of the character. I mean it's sort of obvious they aren't supposed to be actual Chinese opera masks considering the dudes are called "Inner Demons". They take design cues from that element of Chinese culture in the same way Nightmare takes design cues from European knight armor. Or how Superman takes cues from American 'strong man' costume cues. They are not literal renditions of those things. Someone would not look at Guile's flat-top and go "OMG that flat-top is so wrong" because obviously it is not a literal translation. It is stylized for the character and Negative's masks make even more sense in the context of them being his minions. He wouldn't want them to be literally opera masks...because that wouldn't carry his villainous 'brand'.

1 hour ago, misterBee said:

You seem to act like I'm attacking the things you like, but that' s not it at all.  I like SF just as much as you and want it to evolve and stay relevant.  USA Soldier-man Guile and JP Karate-man Ryu were fine in the 90s and will always have a soft-spot in my heart but if they were released in 2022 I'd call them lazy and lame.

And I'm telling you you're wrong.

 

Ryu and Guile are timeless designs drawing on elements that are obvious and subtle to make for strong characters. There's a reason they've endured and it's not nostalgia. They're strong designs because they're immediately recognizable and digestible to people EVERYWHERE at any point in modern history.

 

EDIT:

Also not angry with you and don't want to come off like I am. I'll gladly buy you a drink 😄 Sorry for anything that comes off tonally wrong, I suck at written tone when not writing fiction cuz I just write as stream of consciousness

Edited by YagamiFire
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1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

It's his villainous thematics. Constantly drawing these narrow lines over "Oh but he had a yin-yang and these masks" is just silly because there is very many reasonable people that will totally see that as "Oh a cool nod to Chinese stuff that makes sense for Mr. Negative" and not "cringe".

We can agree to disagree on this.

 

Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was "cool Indian stuff" for people who didn't know what was going on, but I don't think many Native Americans were happy with its skewed/incorrect representation of their people.  If you don't know and you like something, that's fine -- but that doesn't necessarily excuse the creator for either not doing their homework or straight up misrepresenting people.  I may not be able to claim all of Chinese culture for my own, but on the flipside I doubt I'm the only Chinese person who thought that shit was whack as hell.

 

Honestly if the game didn't go out of your way to tell you they were Chinese opera masks, I wouldn't have cared.  But they really work hard to point it out, and the blatant inaccuracy can really take you out of it.  Despite how fantastical and weird Marvel's world is, it IS supposed to be our modern world.  China and Chinese people do exist in Spider-man, it's supposed to be reflecting our world in a realistic way (at least in this particular instance).

 

If this is a person's first exposure to Chinese culture, it would be nice if it was a bit more accurate.

 

These are what real masks look like (and what the game claims to be using):

Facial-design-of-Beijing-opera-Mask-Chua 

 

And this is what the game shows:

DbFi3CpUQAECsD9?format=jpg&name=medium

 

It's not even close.  I understand there is artistic license and people might not lose sleep over it, but it is at least a little disrespectful.  Are real Chinese opera masks dorky looking?  Definitely.  But they could have just kept their mouths shut, used their cool mask designs, and not called them something that they are not.  Everybody would win.

 

(to be fair to Insomniac these designs are closer to ones used in the comics, but I don't know if they call them opera masks in the comics)

 

It's a silly example but if you had an in-game Catholic Church where they replaced Jesus on the cross with Moses on a Hindu Swastika and had characters refer to it as normal Christian decor I'm sure there would be at least some people who would think it's hella weird.

 

Ghosts of Tsushima did it best I think -- there are huge historical inaccuracies but they are close enough in spirit and show some real research and care put in.

 

Anyway thanks for chatting. 🙂

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3 hours ago, YagamiFire said:

Growing up Street Fighter helped expose me to outside cultural ideas and learn to really love and embrace them and enjoy finding out about them. It wasn't 'exoticism', it was a celebration of differences.


I will say that growing up with Street Fighter really helped shape my world view as well. I saw all the peoples of the world for what they really are. With each iteration in the series my beliefs about humanity were reaffirmed. Now in my 4th decade, I understand that all these beautiful cultures the world over really should ought to be ruled absolutely by an evil international organization with one man and one man only at helm.

hqdefault.jpg


Thank you Capcom! ❤️

Edited by Daemos
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Not sure those mask images bolster your claim. Those are pretty believably the end product of iterative concept designs springing from Chinese opera masks... (with other design elements for sure since they're demons and all...but the opera influence is obvious)

 

Yes they've been warped and they're (naturally) entirely monochromatic/color-inverted...but that's the point considering Mr. Negative. You can see the use of small eye-holes (which are white on the Inner Demons because they're black in the opera masks)  surrounded by black (inverted whites of eyes) that are then surrounded by larger portions of color...for the Demons this is white (they're monochromatic) where-as the opera masks tend to be black (to make the whites of the eyes 'pop'). Gee it's like they're totally inverted. The sweeping designs with shape-contouring accent lines in opposing color are also shared as a design aesthetic.

 

The Inner Demon masks are, of course, exaggerated into demon forms instead of regular human faces...which is why they do not share a uniform shape and are distorted with huge fangs and mouths and horns and stuff. Human beings don't have those things. Demons do. The design origins for those facial features are also pretty obvious in Chinese art.

 

I feel like you're dealing with some serious literal-ism problem when looking at them. They're demon masks based on Chinese opera masks. This is indisputable considering the design origins of the masks by the artist was quite literally to warp Chinese opera masks. Saying they're "not" is just ignoring reality. It would be like saying Darth Maul isn't based on Rorschach tests.

 

Saying it's "not even close" is just...silly. Before the game even came out I knew the Inner Demon masks were clearly influenced by/inspired by/based on Chinese opera masks just based on stuff I saw in adverts and development info.

 

As far as Christian stuff, I mean do you have any idea how much "dark priest" character stuff is out there? Just bring up a bunch of Castlevania. I would never say "They aren't representing Christianity correctly with Shaft's costume!" cuz like...OBVIOUSLY they aren't...but if I saw him, in-universe, I'd say "He's wearing priest robes"...and if someone looked at me and said "Actually, they're not priest robes because blahblahblah" I'd wait for them to stop speaking before calmly saying "Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. He's evil and wearing some twisted version of them. Was that not obvious?"

 

In fact, the Inner Demon masks resemble elements from opera masks, older sorcerer masks and even Tibetan masks. Pretty much overtly so.

 

And to speak to the Native American stuff...well, I'm old enough to remember people complaining about how "stereotypical" Nightwolf was when he was supposedly designed as part of the create-a-character MKII contest by a Native American fan. So...no I don't put much stock into individuals offense over a character design if the intent is clearly to celebrate something or make it as cool as possible. To this day, we still have people that complain about Thunder in modern Killer Instinct for being "a stereotype" when he was explicitly designed with the help of a Nez Perce tribe member from Idaho. People will line up to be 'offended' on behalf of the very person that designed it.

 

Like if we found out that the designer for the Inner Demons was Chinese and literally referenced images of Chinese opera masks to incorporate elements of their design into the masks...would that suddenly change the opinion of them? Cuz that seems like it would have to...but would simultaneously be weird since that is information that exists outside the confines of the design itself (which, again, I have to say is pretty overtly based on quite a few design elements from opera masks)

Edited by YagamiFire
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40 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

As far as Christian stuff, I mean do you have any idea how much "dark priest" character stuff is out there? Just bring up a bunch of Castlevania. I would never say "They aren't representing Christianity correctly with Shaft's costume!" cuz like...OBVIOUSLY they aren't...but if I saw him, in-universe, I'd say "He's wearing priest robes"...and if someone looked at me and said "Actually, they're not priest robes because blahblahblah" I'd wait for them to stop speaking before calmly saying "Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. He's evil and wearing some twisted version of them. Was that not obvious?"

If a work is trying to portray something as  REALISTIC, it should be at least kind of realistic.  Castlevania doesn't pretend to be realistic in the slightest so idk what bearing that has on things.

 

I don't care about how accurate Sengoku Basara X is, but I DO care about how accurate something like Ghost of Tsushima is.  Spider-man is playing the Chinese thing straight, which is why their portrayal is so irksome.

 

40 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

Do you seriously think the example you've provided bolsters your claim? Those are pretty clearly the end product of iterative concept designs springing from Chinese opera masks... (with other design elements for sure since they're demons and all...but the opera influence is obvious)

 

Yes they've been warped and they're (naturally) entirely monochromatic/color-inverted...but that's the point considering Mr. Negative. You can see the use of small eye-holes (which are white on the Inner Demons because they're black in the opera masks)  surrounded by black (inverted whites of eyes) that are then surrounded by larger portions of color...for the Demons this is white (they're monochromatic) where-as the opera masks tend to be white. Gee it's like they're totally inverted. The sweeping designs with shape-contouring accent lines in opposing color are also shared as a design aesthetic.

 

The Inner Demon masks are, of course, exaggerated into demon forms instead of regular human faces...which is why they do not share a uniform shape and are distorted with huge fangs and mouths and horns and stuff. Human beings don't have those things. Demons do. The design origins for those facial features are also pretty obvious in Chinese art.

Yes it's obvious the colors are black and white because of Mr. Negative.  Colors are also a REALLY important part of Chinese opera.  The colors have actual meanings and implications.  To call something Chinese opera and then straight up ignore the colors while also DRASTICALLY changing the shape of the masks until they look like something completely different defeats the whole purpose of calling them opera masks in the first place.  Why call them opera?  They could have just been masks.  That's what I don't get.  

 

Your idea of how 'opera' the masks are differs from mine.  What elements in the design you think are important differ from what I think is important.  I don't know what ethnicity you are, but as a Chinese person the designs seems weird.  It's fine if you don't agree, but I don't see why you feel the right to tell me how I should feel about it.

 

To go back to the Native American example, some people might say "As long as headdresses have feathers!  It's all good!"  To someone who is actually from the relevant cultures, that might simply not be good enough.  If you don't have any background or knowledge in something it's easy to dismiss.  If you know or care about something it's a lot less easy to overlook it.

 

40 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

And to speak to the Native American stuff...well, I'm old enough to remember people complaining about how "stereotypical" he was when he was supposedly designed as part of the create-a-character MKII contest by a Native American fan. So...no I don't put much stock into individuals offense over a character design if the intent is clearly to celebrate something or make it as cool as possible. To this day, we still have people that complain about Thunder in modern Killer Instinct for being "a stereotype" when he was explicitly designed with the help of a Nez Perce tribe member from Idaho. People will line up to be 'offended' on behalf of the very person that designed it.

As you mentioned before, not everyone is the same.  Some people care about things more than others.  Different people can take more offense than others, even if they are from separate cultures.  What's alarming to me is that just because you don't agree with someone they don't have a right to be offended.  If Thunder was designed with good intentions but some people don't like that, that's their right.  Why does anyone get to decide what people are and aren't ok with?

 

Just because something wasn't meant to be offensive/was done from a good place doesn't mean you get to blanket dismiss anyone who has any problem with it, big or small.

 

One day you'll post something YOU care about, and I hope you don't encounter a bunch of people who say shit like "well I don't put a lot of stock into how you feel about xyz.  It's OBVIOUSLY fine!  Just be okay with it!"  It's honestly kind of insulting.

 

What if you post in here about some SF stuff you are unhappy with and I wait for you to finish posting before calmly saying "Yeah, who cares about your opinion?  I think it fits SF perfectly!"

 

Are there people on the internet who overreact to every little thing?  Definitely.  But there are also people who don't give a fuck about anyone, and just dismiss anything they disagree with as being silly/unimportant/not relevant.  You are dangerously close to the latter when you just arbitrarily decide other people don't have the right to dislike something, simply because YOU are cool with it.  And when it's stuff like a race/religion that you are not part of, why do you think your opinion matters more than theirs? 

 

PS - The art director from Insomniac is Asian.  Maybe she's cool with the masks and think they look great.  I obviously don't. Either way that's neither here nor there because we are two different people with two different opinions.

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27 minutes ago, misterBee said:

If a work is trying to portray something as  REALISTIC, it should be at least kind of realistic.  Castlevania doesn't pretend to be realistic in the slightest so idk what bearing that has on things.

That would be to suggest that Mr. Negative, the evil super-villain looking to bomb New York with a super virus, is trying to ACCURATELY portray Chinese opera masks.


That seems like a patently absurd claim

 

27 minutes ago, misterBee said:

PS - The art director from Insomniac is Asian.  Maybe she's cool with the masks and think they look great.  I obviously don't. Either way that's neither here nor there because we are two different people with two different opinions.

Your original opinion was not "I don't like the way they look"...cuz guess what? I don't particularly like the Inner Demon masks either. I think they're too dark along with the black suits. I feel like they don't 'pop'. I don't strongly dislike the but I don't really like them either.

 

What I agreed with was you reading intent into the masks and intent into their design with how 'wrong' they were etc linked to throwing around the notion that Asians are being slotted into this 'oh so exotic' caste. So yes the art director being Asian does matter as it kind of strongly undermines a lot of the foundation of your argumentation.

 

You cannot reframe this as "I said I don't like the mask designs". That is not what you said. You linked those mask designs to a judgment of their designer.

Edited by YagamiFire
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11 minutes ago, misterBee said:

One day you'll post something YOU care about, and I hope you don't encounter a bunch of people who say shit like "well I don't put a lot of stock into how you feel about xyz.  It's OBVIOUSLY fine!  Just be okay with it!"  It's honestly kind of insulting.

Also LOL I mean...just spend time on the internet. I get told all the time I don't have a right to so much as comment with my opinions because of my gender or the color of my skin. To me that's just Tuesday. I don't really care.

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13 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

That would be to suggest that Mr. Negative, the evil super-villain looking to bomb New York with a super virus, is trying to ACCURATELY portray Chinese opera masks.

 

That seems like a patently absurd claim

I said from the first post that it's obviously fiction.  Does nuance not exist to you?  Is it so wild that SOME THINGS they want to portray realistically, while others they don't?  It's not all or nothing.  If Spider-man had a really racist depiction of black people you'd be ok with it just because it's fiction?  According to you you shouldn't take anything seriously just because it's in a fictional work?

 

13 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

What I agreed with was you reading intent into the masks and intent into their design with how 'wrong' they were etc linked to throwing around the notion that Asians are being slotted into this 'oh so exotic' caste. So yes the art director being Asian does matter as it kind of strongly undermines a lot of the foundation of your argumentation.

 

You cannot reframe this as "I said I don't like the mask designs". That is not what you said. You linked those mask designs to a judgment of their designer.

My opinion is that I think the Chinese stuff in Spider-man comes across as super awkward, clumsy, and seems like it was written to emphasize shit as being 'Asian' without it feeling authentic.  I'm saying I personally find it irksome. If the designer at Insomniac (who is also Asian) doesn't think that, it's fine. What ISN'T fine is how your whole thought process is "I'm cool with it, so anyone who disagrees basically doesn't know what they're talking about".

 

11 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

Also LOL I mean...just spend time on the internet. I get told all the time I don't have a right to so much as comment with my opinions because of my gender or the color of my skin. To me that's just Tuesday. I don't really care.

I'm not saying you should care about everyone on Earth, but that kinda seems like you just don't give a fuck about any opinion but your own, and basically just ignore the opinions of everyone you don't agree with.  Just because someone is a certain gender/race it certainly doesn't make them the ultimate authority on certain issues, but wouldn't you agree it at least give their opinion a bit more weight? If we're talking women's issues wouldn't a woman's opinion matter at least slightly more?

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I posted a million words talking about how the portrayal of Chinese stuff in that game seems fake/forced, and all you can do is talk about how well it fits with the character of Mr. Negative.  I don't care how well it fits with Mr. Negative.  I'm talking about the game's representation of Chinese culture.

 

LOL we might as well just call this whole conversation "YagamiFire literally cannot fathom why a Chinese person might not see things the same way he does in regards to Chinese shit".

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A few things...

 

54 minutes ago, misterBee said:

Your idea of how 'opera' the masks are differs from mine.  What elements in the design you think are important differ from what I think is important.  I don't know what ethnicity you are, but as a Chinese person the designs seems weird.  It's fine if you don't agree, but I don't see why you feel the right to tell me how I should feel about it.

It's because you're the one speaking in absolutes.

 

You are saying they are not opera masks and they do not represent opera masks. I am saying I see how they could. I am not speaking in an absolute that they DO just that to me it's pretty clear where that inspiration and design element comes in.

 

You are making definitive statements that exclude other opinions then asking why your opinion is not allowed to exist? Dude your opinion is necessarily exclusionary. "As a Chinese person"...great, cool. How much history do you have with opera masks? Better yet, how much history do you have with professional art? Color theory? Design theory? Does my experience at a professional level trump your 'feeling' based on being a Chinese person if you lack that experience? Does "Chinese"-ness magically bestow the ability to recognize design elements just because it's related to your ethnic background? Do I, as an American, have a better capability to judge the art influences derived from a Coca-Cola bottle?

 

Of course not. It's all subjective.

 

Obviously the line about Opera Masks was put into the game to highlight how the designs were derived. This should be painfully obvious. Chinese opera masks are not some common bit of knowledge people just walk around with. Its specific information. That is the games designers saying "Hey that's what we drew on for inspiration for the art direction of these masks. We're letting you know that via dialogue as something neat". Again, this should be painfully obvious based on how narrative structure works. When an author points something like that out via a character it is typically a factual statement about the design methodology of the medium they're working through.

 

"Oh wow, Miss Art Director! Those Inner Demon masks are really cool!"
"Actually I based a lot of elements on them from Chinese opera masks"
"For real? I'll put that in the dialogue for MJ to call it out. Super cool job on them"

 

Of course, your "opinion" necessitates that this incredibly likely and plausible exchange is literally impossible since you have excluded the masks from possibly being based on what they are said to be based on. You seem to prefer to imagine that the masks came first then some writer went "Uhhhhh let's just have MJ call them Chinese Opera masks for some reason". It's cart-before-the-horse. It's backwards.

 

Do you not recognize the design elements? Yeah sure, possibly. Entirely fair to not see such a thing. Don't declare it to be untrue though.

 

54 minutes ago, misterBee said:

Why does anyone get to decide what people are and aren't ok with?

Because you're the one throwing around this being 'fetishizing' and 'exoticism'. You are demonstrably not making a judgement about the art, you are reading intent into it and thereby making a judgment about the person that has made the art. A negative judgment at that.

 

30 minutes ago, misterBee said:

I said from the first post that it's obviously fiction.  Does nuance not exist to you?  Is it so wild that SOME THINGS they want to portray realistically, while others they don't?  It's not all or nothing.  If Spider-man had a really racist depiction of black people you'd be ok with it just because it's fiction?  According to you you shouldn't take anything seriously just because it's in a fictional work?

WTF are you talking about? Nuance? Bro, you're looking at masks that belong to an evil organization of thugs that work for Mr. Negative that are based on Chinese opera masks and saying "They don't look exactly like Chinese opera masks". Of course they don't. There's a HUGE amount of context to the masks. They're Chinese opera masks as warped by usage by Mr. Negative.

 

30 minutes ago, misterBee said:

My opinion is that I think the Chinese stuff in Spider-man comes across as super awkward, clumsy, and seems like it was written to emphasize shit as being 'Asian' without it feeling authentic.  I'm saying I personally find it irksome. If the designer at Insomniac (who is also Asian) doesn't think that, it's fine. What ISN'T fine is how your whole thought process is "I'm cool with it, so anyone who disagrees basically doesn't know what they're talking about".

 

Right but you can't judge authenticity in any meaningful way. You don't know the level of research or attempts at authenticity that went into it. You are judging entirely at a surface level. You learned after the fact that the art designer is Asian...so that kind of torpedoes a lot of the basis of your claims unless you want to claim that the art director herself feels Asians are 'exotic' while herself being Asian? is this some self-loathing/internalized exoticism logic now?

 

For all you know, she poured over mask designs from all over China to make masks she felt were super authentic and you dismiss it as "exoticism" from a woman of the race she would, somehow, be finding exotic. I'm an artist. I have been paid for my art. I find it gross to look at the surface level of a piece of art and ascribe negative connotations (which veer very close to calling someone ignorantly racist) based on your subjective opinion of design elements in that art. That's all, man. I don't think it's fair. I don't think its fair to the creators and I don't think its fair to the art.

 

You made attempts at psycho-analyzing the source of the art (Asian exoticism or whatever) without considering that you might be projecting your own feelings onto how your are perceiving that art. Maybe none of those qualities you equate to it are there and you're only projecting them? Did you, perhaps, assume Insomniac was a bunch of ignorant white people just throwing in what they felt were Chinese tropes? If so, would that not be a prejudicial view in and of itself?

 

When we don't know what goes into art, it's kind of folly to judge the artist. It's ignorant. Can you say "I don't like that"? Sure. Go for it. Hell, I've made art myself I flat out don't like. Sometimes I don't like it immediately and sometimes I don't like it later. Other people might love it. Whatever. I don't look at art though and assume things about the artist that require some serious extrapolation and assumption.

30 minutes ago, misterBee said:

I'm not saying you should care about everyone on Earth, but that kinda seems like you just don't give a fuck about any opinion but your own, and basically just ignore the opinions of everyone you don't agree with.  Just because someone is a certain gender/race it certainly doesn't make them the ultimate authority on certain issues, but wouldn't you agree it at least give their opinion a bit more weight? If we're talking women's issues wouldn't a woman's opinion matter at least slightly more?

I don't give a damn about opinions that seem based entirely on someones emotional reaction extrapolated out to accusations and claims that seem divorced from the actual content of what they're talking about. And no, I don't agree that someones gender/race gives them necessarily more weight on any given opinion. To do so is racist.

 

"Oh hey you're Chinese, right? Cool, tell me about Kung-fu" cuz obviously you must have a more weighty opinion on it...because you're Chinese? That in and of itself is a racist assumption. "No no, shut up black academic scholar on the history of kung-fu who is studied in various disciplines. I want the Chinese guys opinion on this"

 

Someone being from China or even living in China doesn't mean they necessarily know anything more about something like Chinese Opera masks...or frankly much of anything else.

 

And I certainly wouldn't assume somehow someone from China can magically judge the end result of iterative design work better than someone else after both have seen the origin point and the end point of that work. As if they are somehow a judge of 'authenticity'. That makes no sense. The artist is the one that begins and ends that process with their efforts whether they show us that process or not.

 

16 minutes ago, misterBee said:

LOL we might as well just call this whole conversation "YagamiFire literally cannot fathom why a Chinese person might not see things the same way he does in regards to Chinese shit".

Or maybe "misterBee is more right about art than the artist...somehow"

 

I've repeated several times that you are entitled to your opinion. I'm just pointing out where it doesn't conform to reality and where you jump to conclusions...conclusions which aren't necessarily supported.

 

Again, your original claim was not "I don't like this design". It was a claim about the intent/nature of the art. Not the quality of it. You moved those goalposts.

Edited by YagamiFire
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4 hours ago, misterBee said:

 

I guess what I'm asking is why having a 'kung fu star name' enriches the character. Jamie is wearing the stereotypical shit, he's got the gourd, he's got the drunken style, he has the braid -- I mean at that point what does adding a Chinese-sounding name add to it?  If anything the fact that his name is the one thing that ISN'T super Chinese is more interesting, especially when compared to everything else about him.

 

I agree with all your points about SF char design -- it has always been stereotypes and it's one of the things I've always thought was the lamest about it.  I really like how (most of) the newer characters are starting to move away from the 1980s basic-ass ethnic stereotypes.

 

Yes, SF is definitely about making 'exotic' chars, and when it comes to legacy chars (Gief, etc.) it's obvious why you can't change who they are anymore. I 100% agree with your analysis of them. 

 

My main point is that in 2022, different nationalities aren't 'exotic'.  It's not the 80s/90s anymore.  Someone being from Asia or Africa or Europe isn't 'wild'.  Being from another country or race isn't 'weird' or 'exciting'.  It's just life.  The quicker we stop treating different races/skin colors/countries as exciting or wild the better.

 

If SF chars want to get weird that's great, and I hope they keep pushing things.  I'm just tired of nationality being used as a crutch for char design.

Yeah, you know i think thing is some people love the naive, bizzarre anime/cartoon exagerate stereotype view of the world we got back to SF2, some others are slighty or heavily bothered by it and wish SF change to fit modern sensibilities 

 

I am surely on former group, but as general rule my opinion is as long one is fine with their own group be threated same way it's kinda ok position to have

Like as italian V.Rosso is my fav SF rep of my country and dude had 99 silly stereotypes and nonsense stuff going on, had zero problem with it, actually it amused me, never desired my ideal italian rep to be generic safe random guy, i would be the first to be like camon capcom drop some SF silly shit on my guy lol

 

I wish i can have V.Rosso in SF6, would be dream addition to me and instant main even if was lowest shit tier lol 

 

Marisa have super silly roman gladiator/legionarious imagery with helmet hair, gladius design everywhere, lot of latin random names are going to be her moveset and would not be surprised if she fights in coliseum looking arena... and reality is only thing got me mad are'nt stereotypes but that i really wanted male rep, if it was Shadow of Rome Agrippa 1:1 rip off would have been like mu fav SF char ever lmao

 

What found amusing was back to SF4 some american people (very few to be fair) got offended by Rufus being loud obese mcdojo biker lol 

I mean Rufus was maybe a shit character (shape being probably too much caricature even for SF, his babbling lines were terribly written to the point he felt legit super retarded kinda like Abigail in SFV), but concept itself did fit SF way of do shit (specially considering he was clearly joke char) and found hilarious see americans who got cool characters for decades and seen rest of the world get freaks be suddently upset lol 

But again to be fair were really really few comments i read here and there, most were just hating on Rufus for being Rufus 🤣

 

So i have same lighthearted approach on any other country rep, SF2 level of world caricature is fine by me (big fan of WWs making it in start cast) and personally don't feel the need to dilute SF classic spirit to fit with 2022, even if i understand do it a bit is marketing necessity 

 

I think like i said in first line guess all depend on people different sensibility, "Jamie" to me will still sound bland (even if can be made a point to be that way) and "Jamie Chan" or something similar would feel over caricature to you (even if can be made a point to be that way)... no much right answer, i can respect either as long person does'nt have double standard going on between your own and other cultures

 

 

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@YagamiFireYou raise some good points so I will try to explain this as best as I can.

 

From the beginning this has been about how I, as an Asian person, felt about the Asian stuff in Spider-man.

 

1) I thought it felt fake

2) It bothered me how they mention concrete realistic things and then portray them in a way that really ruins immersion/comes off as clueless

3) It seemed TO ME to be geared heavily toward beating you over the head with stuff that is supposed to make you think OH IT'S SO ASIAN

 

Am I an expert in Asian studies?  Of course not.  But firstly, this is about how I feel, and secondly, actually being from that culture DOES inform my opinion in a way that someone who ISN'T just might not get.  I'm not saying I'm the authority or I'm right.  I'm saying I feel a certain way about it because I have a certain background.

 

It's clear you were A-OK with how that shit was portrayed.  Good for you.  I never said you shouldn't, or couldn't, or that the devs were out to get Chinese people.  It just SEEMED TO ME, that the way they portrayed Chinese shit wasn't good, and came off as lazy.  Neither you nor I will know EXACTLY what research they did or didn't do, or what constraints they had, or what their intentions were.  Playing the game, it felt like they were trying to impress non-Asian people with shit that felt fake and silly.

 

So far this is all my OPINION, ok?  How the game felt TO ME.

 

What gets to me is suddenly you're like "You don't get it.  CLEARLY this is fine because of this, or the masks are TOTALLY GOOD because of this." Look, I'm saying it feels really inauthentic, and you're jumping in telling me how authentic you think it is.  Which is a fine opinion to have, but one I OBVIOUSLY do not agree with.

 

1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

Right but you can't judge authenticity in any meaningful way. You don't know the level of research or attempts at authenticity that went into it. You are judging entirely at a surface level. You learned after the fact that the art designer is Asian...so that kind of torpedoes a lot of the basis of your claims unless you want to claim that the art director herself feels Asians are 'exotic' while herself being Asian? is this some self-loathing/internalized exoticism logic now?

1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

For all you know, she poured over mask designs from all over China to make masks she felt were super authentic and you dismiss it as "exoticism" from a woman of the race she would, somehow, be finding exotic. I'm an artist. I have been paid for my art. I find it gross to look at the surface level of a piece of art and ascribe negative connotations (which veer very close to calling someone ignorantly racist) based on your subjective opinion of design elements in that art. That's all, man. I don't think it's fair. I don't think its fair to the creators and I don't think its fair to the art.

 

You made attempts at psycho-analyzing the source of the art (Asian exoticism or whatever) without considering that you might be projecting your own feelings onto how your are perceiving that art. Maybe none of those qualities you equate to it are there and you're only projecting them? Did you, perhaps, assume Insomniac was a bunch of ignorant white people just throwing in what they felt were Chinese tropes? If so, would that not be a prejudicial view in and of itself?

 

When we don't know what goes into art, it's kind of folly to judge the artist. It's ignorant. Can you say "I don't like that"? Sure. Go for it. Hell, I've made art myself I flat out don't like. Sometimes I don't like it immediately and sometimes I don't like it later. Other people might love it. Whatever. I don't look at art though and assume things about the artist that require some serious extrapolation and assumption.

I never said the people who worked on the game weren't Asian.  Neither of us have any way of knowing what staff members had what input and what their intentions were. I just said the final result felt fake, which is a totally valid criticism to have.  I'm sure the people working on the game meant all the best but that's how it came across to me.  As a Chinese person.  I'm not out here saying they're out there purposely trying to misrepresent things.  But from my point of view the Chinese stuff came across poorly.

 

I am an artist too.  I also have been paid for art. How people perceive your art is just as important as your intentions when making it.  That goes for writing, games, movies, books, drawings, whatever.  Someone may look at something I make and feel really offended.  You know what?  That's their right.  I may not agree with it, it might not have been my intention, but I will try to understand why that is the case.  What I'm NOT going to expect them to do is be 'objective' about my work.  What does that even mean anyway?  All art is SUPER subjective, and interpreted by people differently.

 

You played Spider-man and thought "wow this is great."  I played Spider-man and thought "wow this is great, except that whole Mr. Negative arc which was cringey and lame"  My opinion is not more important than yours, and vice versa.  But when I tried to explain MY view of the game, MY issues with it, you're on me trying to explain why how I feel is wrong, is incorrect, etc.  Listen bro, my background is different from yours.  I see things differently.  The game comes off as tone-deaf and super white-washed in terms of the Asian stuff to me.  I'm not out here saying the devs are racist or something.  I'm here saying that the execution, TO ME, to some of the stuff in the game was quite bad.  It GIVES THE IMPRESSION that the game was written by clueless white people.  Were they really clueless?  Maybe not.  Were they white?  Maybe not.  That was THE IMPRESSION that I got.

 

I respect you for trying to defend the artists involved, but my intention isn't to say they're bad people or anything.  I'm just saying the work they made, in the end, came off looking a certain way, and I feel that's a legit criticism.

 

An example of this is Uncle Tom's Cabin.  That work was a viral ANTISLAVERY book, but some black people hate it because of the stereotypes it reinforced about them.  Harriet Beacher Stowe clearly meant well, and maybe she was a great person.  But it's perfectly understandable why people might want to trash her work, even if they are the same people she was trying to help.  Intention isn't everything.

 

1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

And no, I don't agree that someones gender/race gives them necessarily more weight on any given opinion. To do so is racist.

Just having a certain background does not make you an authority.  It is true.  But it will make you feel and see things differently than someone who DOES NOT share that background.  People with different backgrounds will experience things differently.  That's obvious, isn't it?  So if a woman says "this women's issue bothers me", what right do I have to go "nah I'm gonna ignore what you say -- I don't agree with you and being a woman doesn't make you an expert."  Does it mean she is definitely right?  No, of course not.  But it is undeniable her opinion is built on things that I myself have not experienced.  I'm just saying you gotta show some empathy.

 

Being Chinese does not make me an authority on Chinese things.  I don't magically have the ability to tell what is authentic without doing research.  I DO, however, have the ability to determine what FEELS AUTHENTIC TO ME.  And what feels authentic to me isn't going to be just explained away or nullified because some person on the internet is telling me I shouldn't feel that way.  I'm not saying you gotta listen to people just because of their race.  I'm saying you gotta be less dismissive, because they have a perspective that you may fail to grasp, or cannot ever truly understand.  The points you make to counter me might seem super important to you, but they might mean nothing to me.

 

1 hour ago, YagamiFire said:

Or maybe "misterBee is more right about art than the artist...somehow"

This is ultimately what baffles me more than anything.  What does being 'right' about the art even mean in this case?  All I'm saying is certain things feel super fake, and bad to me. Some parts of it felt lazy.  Some parts of it felt weird.  I think I've been eager to criticize the game, and that's perfectly an acceptable thing to do.  I'm NOT trying to personally insult the people who made it.

 

Anyways I've tried to make this as clear as possible.  Long story short, I'm not calling the devs personally ignorant. I'm saying their work certainly comes across that way, and that opinion is most certainly subjective.

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6 minutes ago, YagamiFire said:

That's all fair for sure. Good talk and all 🙂

 

Did you play Miles Morales? Combat system felt even better

👍

 

No, not yet.  I was waiting to get a PS5 and play it then, but at this rate it's been so long I might as well just wait for the inevitable PC port.  😎

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31 minutes ago, misterBee said:

👍

 

No, not yet.  I was waiting to get a PS5 and play it then, but at this rate it's been so long I might as well just wait for the inevitable PC port.  😎

Oh you'll enjoy it. Spider-Man already had just about the best combat system I've ever played (Far better than stuff like AC or Arkham etc) but MM game makes it even better. REAL impact on a lot of stuff. Game is a joy to play.

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1 hour ago, Saturius said:

I hope Capcom is able to salvage Chun and Cammy in this game. Their story and character treatment has been abysmal since SF4 and they've been crapping on them ever since. 

you mean as place on the foodchain, or keep them the same but getting some W?

 

Guess to some extent will be both, with cast being full of new young characters i think all vets are going to look way more powerful both because direct comparision with newcomers (we already seen Li Fen getting schooled with no effort by Chun in the trailer) and because given the time-skip, they will be actually improved

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1 hour ago, Saturius said:

I hope Capcom is able to salvage Chun and Cammy in this game. Their story and character treatment has been abysmal since SF4 and they've been crapping on them ever since. 

 

I believe it's too late for Capcom to salvage anything to do with Chun-Li and her "Revenge against Shadaloo/M. Bison" arc when they fucked up her character in A Shadow Falls. I don't know, maybe Capcom can retcon it in a future game, maybe we'll get some exposition in SF6 about Chun-Li playing a bigger role. Hell, maybe we'll get freaking cinematics about a proper end to her Revenge arc. But i'm not holding my breath.

 

But while that chapter was poorly done, I have (a little) hope for her "Sifu Chun-Li" chapter of her life.

 

We got a taste of that in the end of SF3. But here we are and already seeing some potential. Not just with Chun's redesign to reflect her maturity. But aging up her adoptive daughter Li-Fen as well. I'd imagine having watched her grow up the past "X" years, training her, and seeing her improve, we'll start to see more of a different side of Chun-Li that we haven't explored that much yet. Plus, a number of things to take away from her bio, one of them being that one of the things she enjoys are "Days off" and "Shopping with Li-Fen". Though she teaches Kung Fu and to Li-Fen, she especially enjoys it when she can take off that role and just do something that most mothers and daughters do.

 

Plus, in her bio, it says that she's become a beloved member of her local community. So there is that possibility she's done some community work outside of teaching kung fu classes. Maybe, even though she's already retired, she continues to keep her streets safe by taking care of anyone who dares: from under-privileged youths who have no where to go, to gang disputes/wars (maybe connecting to the Mad Gear gang seen in the trailer), corrupt politicians doing shady dealls, and maybe another high-class level of evil on par with the likes of Shadaloo.

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25 minutes ago, Hawkingbird said:

Then you better hope they don't run into Juri in Metro City 

Tbh i would not be surprised if they pull some foodchain change in the waifu league, Chun feels all mature & expert & shit, Juri based on design feels more or less the same character

 

To give Chun better record than SFV all they need is to don't make her bite more than she can chew (with Bison out, i don't see characters that can make her go full retard,unless they kidnap Li Fen)  and don't make middle tier ass characters take a W on her, like don't make her lose to Rashids and Birdies of this world

 

I think A.K.I. feels like a potential rival for her, evil chinese kung fu girl and disciple of FANG, who fought Chun Li in the past

That feels a potential good W within Chun's range imho

 

55 minutes ago, Chun-Li_Forever said:

But while that chapter was poorly done, I have (a little) hope for her "Sifu Chun-Li" chapter of her life.

 

We got a taste of that in the end of SF3.

 

If we're talking about the Urien thing, not sure how reliable would be judge her improved based on that sparring/game/whatever that Urien seems to have done for his own amusement

 

55 minutes ago, Chun-Li_Forever said:

We got a taste of that in the end of SF3. But here we are and already seeing some potential. Not just with Chun's redesign to reflect her maturity. But aging up her adoptive daughter Li-Fen as well. I'd imagine having watched her grow up the past "X" years, training her, and seeing her improve, we'll start to see more of a different side of Chun-Li that we haven't explored that much yet. Plus, a number of things to take away from her bio, one of them being that one of the things she enjoys are "Days off" and "Shopping with Li-Fen". Though she teaches Kung Fu and to Li-Fen, she especially enjoys it when she can take off that role and just do something that most mothers and daughters do.

That feels pretty much direct follow up of the path they started for her in SFV, seems coherent evolution

Edited by CESTUS III
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1 hour ago, CESTUS III said:

don't make her bite more than she can chew

This is very relative. I can think of some instance in the main story mode of SFV where a character lost to a villain early on and then they absolutely curbstomped the same villain like it was an insect.

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7 minutes ago, mikros said:

This is very relative. I can think of some instance in the main story mode of SFV where a character lost to a villain early on and then they absolutely curbstomped the same villain like it was an insect.

Yeeeeeessss.. BUT, to pull that shit in an anime style world (SF), you need the creators to think you're shonen hero boss-beater kind of character 

 

Does'nt seem to me they see Chun Li that way  tbh 

 

If Luke get beated up by some kind of boss in early SF6 story, i can think they're building him up for a later a rematch where underdog will probably win

 

But Chun? Keep her away from big dogs, her record suffered already enough imho to get Ls that will not be avenged lol 

 

18 minutes ago, Chun-Li_Forever said:

Nah, I'm talking about her ending where we get a glimpse of her teaching kung fu to kids.

oh ok, yeah that fit nicely SF6

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6 minutes ago, CESTUS III said:

But Chun? Keep her away from big dogs, her record suffered already enough imho to get Ls that will not be avenged lol 

Unless they give her a win vs a big dog in SF6, then that might help, but a little.

 

Won't be as meaningful as avenging her dad, but a win against someone legit would be a net-positive for Chun.

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50 minutes ago, mikros said:

This is very relative. I can think of some instance in the main story mode of SFV where a character lost to a villain early on and then they absolutely curbstomped the same villain like it was an insect.

That's what happened to Ryu with Necalli. He got beat early on and he stomped Nacalli just before the climax

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Chun-Li's new stance move, which they called "Serenity Stream" in English, is named 行雲流水 Kōun ryūsui in Japanese. It's an old expression literally meaning "going like the clouds, flowing like the water"; it alludes figuratively to an easygoing attitude, which adapts to everything without sticking to a specific form.

 

 

 

Oh, and bearded Guile is cool.

Edited by Miðgarðsorm
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